Beauty tips are meant to make you look and feel beautiful, with most of us including them in our daily regimen. But there are always exceptions and here you’ll read some of the worst beauty tips which are downright scary. They are damaging to the skin and can also create health threatening situations. Whatever is listed below took place earlier in history but there are still some beauty products and tips that can have adverse effects. Not to mention, most of us try out a product based on friends’ recommendations. Aside from products, there are plenty of cosmetic surgeries to ‘fix’ a problem too. But do they really help? And are they safe? Read on to figure out the worst beauty tips ever.
1. Worst beauty lotion ever!
In 1981, chief kitchen steward, Hugo Ziemann, author of White House Cookbook, recommended the best products that can be used to make beauty treatments. Across the country, young people of that generation received tips on how to remove freckles. His combination for the lotion was:
1 ounce of lemon juice
1/3 of powdered borax
½ drachma of sugar
According to him, all the ingredients should be mixed in a bottle and kept for a few days, after which it should be applied on the hands and face occasionally. The worst ingredient has to be the borax which is normally used as a floor cleaner. You can imagine using this lotion that treats your skin and a floor surface as equals.
2. Poet’s suggestion for removing pimples
Now here is a story of a poet and his beauty suggestion for pimple elimination. This recommendation proves that poets are good at writing but not particularly at beauty suggestions! His recipe for treatment went something like this: bake windy beans and pale lupines. Each of them should weigh 6 pounds and should be ground well in a mill. Next, mix it with white lead, Illyrian iris and scum of ruddy nitre and knead well. The whole concoction should then be mixed with bird poop! Apparently, applying the mixture on pimples and spots would help in eliminating them.
3. Usage of arsenic for eyes and skin
The Elizabethan women used a combination of chalk, arsenic and vinegar to make their complexion white. And in the Victorian era, the deadly but popular arsenic eye drop was used to give a bright and large effect to the eyes. But this backfired, as logic dictates, as after a certain period, the user’s vision started to deteriorate and would ultimately become blind.
4. Leeches for pale skin
This could very well be one of the worst tips one could ever come up with. In order to get pale skin, women in the medieval period used leeches. The blood loss through leeches sucking on their skin ensured a white complexion. Horrifically, the ‘Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine’also referred continuous application of leeches to the anus to lighten the skin.
5. How not to be good at anything
‘Book of the Courtier’ written by Baldassare Castiglione in the Renaissance period, guided women on how to look attractive. The book was all about manners, suggesting that women shouldn’t be good at anything since it might “show more skill than sweetness”. His also suggested that women should not move too fast or smartly and should resist from playing the trumpet, drums and fife.